It is well understood that attempts to maintain viable hydrocarbon supplies have necessitated the exploitation of more marginal hydrocarbon production zones. It is also well known that exploiting marginal hydrocarbon production zones requires the use of sophisticated well drilling techniques, such as horizontal drilling and multi-stage well completions. It is further known that most production zones generally require stimulation in order to establish or sustain viable hydrocarbon production. As understood by those skilled in the art, the stimulation of hydrocarbon production zones generally requires pumping high-pressure, often abrasive, fluids into the zones. In order to accomplish this in the past, pressure-sensitive wellhead equipment had to be isolated from those fluids during the stimulation process.
Many wellhead isolation tools have been developed to protect sensitive wellhead equipment while high-pressure stimulation fluids are pumped into subterranean formations. A high-pressure mandrel of those wellhead isolation tools, commonly referred to as a “frac mandrel” provides the pressure isolation through the wellhead. Some wellhead isolation tools also provide full-bore access to a casing of the well in order to permit downhole operations such as logging, perforating, packing and plugging to be performed through the tools. However, prior art wellhead isolation tools have known disadvantages. For example, some are expensive to use due to labor costs associated with delivering and operating them; some cannot be removed from a live well; and some are known to “get stuck” in the wellhead making them difficult or impossible to remove without killing or plugging a casing of the well.
There therefore exists a need for a configurable wellhead system with a permanent fracturing spool that can be left on a wellhead throughout a service life of the well, and can be configured to production requirements after well completion, re-completion or workover is completed.